“Eliezer said that she should be stoned to death,” said Deborah.

“That’s the law, but nobody uses it against young unmarried girls like Miriel. That’s for married women who betray their husbands.”

“I would never do that,” said Deborah.

“I’m glad they made you my nurse,” said Rebekah, “and if there were a girl here just like you were in those days, then if I had a baby she could be the nurse. Because I couldn’t imagine a better gift for my children than to have a nurse like you as they grow up.”

Yet Deborah burst into tears again, and this time they were deep, wracking sobs. It was not hard to find out why she was crying this time, though. “I miss my baby so much,” she said. “Why didn’t they find me a husband like Isaac’s going to find for Miriel?”

“Try to find,” said Rebekah. How could she explain to Deborah that she had been doubly unmarriageable because of the simpleness of her mind? “And maybe they would have, only that was when I needed you, and they gave me to you instead. I’m sorry you only had me when you would rather have had a husband.”

It was a shameless manipulation, but it had the desired effect, as Deborah hastened to reassure Rebekah that she’d rather have been her nurse than have a hundred husbands.

Later, though, when the whole Miriel affair was settled, Rebekah talked to Isaac about Deborah’s reaction and said, “The thing that surprised me most was that she could shed tears for her baby as if she had only lost the child yesterday.”

“To her that’s how it seems,” said Isaac.

“I suppose it’s part of her simplemindedness, that the passage of time doesn’t make the sorrow fade,” said Rebekah.

Isaac laughed ruefully. “No, I don’t think so, or all parents are simpleminded.”

“Do you mean that with all the babies that die young, their parents still mourn for them nearly twenty years later, as if they had only just died?” She thought of her mother. She must never have stopped grieving over losing her children.

“Maybe those who have other children to comfort them are better able to keep the grief at bay,” said Isaac, “but they never forget, and the memory of the child they lost is always like a knife in their heart.”

She had never felt so young and unobservant. “How are you so wise about it?” she asked.

“Because my father never got over losing Ishmael,” said Isaac.

That baffled Rebekah. “He didn’t lose Ishmael. Ishmael is very much alive and has twelve sons and is one of the great lords of the desert.”